The
John Stott
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THE LONDON LECTURES IN CONTEMPORARY CHRISTIANITY This is an annual series of lectures founded in 1974 to promote Chris- tian thought about contemporary issues. Their aim is to expound an aspect of historical biblical Christianity and to relate it to a contempo- rary issue in the church in the world. They seek to be scholarly in con- tent yet popular enough in appeal and style to attract the educated public; and to present each topic in such a way as to be of interest to the widest possible audience as well as to the Christian public.
Recent Lectures 1994 Transforming Leadership: A Christian Approach to Managing Organizations, Richard Higginson 1995 The Spirit of the Age, Roy McCloughry 1996 The Word on the Box: Christians in the Media, Justin Philips, Graham Mytton, Alan Rogers, Robert McLeish, Tim Dean 1997 Matters of Life and Death: Contemporary Medical Dilemmas in the Light of the Christian Faith, John Wyatt (published by IVP in 1998 as Matters of Life and Death: Today’s Healthcare Dilemmas in the Light of Christian Faith) 1998 Endless Conflict or Empty Tolerance: The Christian Response to a Multifaith World, Vinoth Ramachandra (published by IVP in 1999 as Faiths in Conflict: Christian Integrity in a Multicultural World) 2000 The Incomparable Christ: Celebrating His Millennial Birth, John Stott 2001 Moral Leadership, Bishop James Jones
The London Lectures Trust The London Lectures in Contemporary Christianity are organized by the London Lectures Trust, which was established as a charity in 1994. The committee represents several different evangelical organizations.
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The Incomparable Christ
John Stott
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InterVarsity Press P. O. Box 1400, Downers Grove, IL 60515-1426 World Wide Web: www.ivpress.com E-mail: [email protected] © John R. W. Stott 2001 Published in the United States of America by InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, Illinois, with permission from Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowship, Leicester, England. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from InterVarsity Press. InterVarsity Press® is the book-publishing division of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA®, a movement of students and faculty active on campus at hundreds of universities, colleges and schools of nursing in the United States of America, and a member movement of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students. For information about local and regional activities, write Public Relations Dept., InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA, 6400 Schroeder Rd., P.O. Box 7895, Madison, WI 53707-7895, or visit the IVCF website at
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CONTENTS
Foreword by George Carey, the Archbishop of Canterbury ...... 9 Chairman’s Preface ...... 11 Acknowledgments...... 12 Introduction ...... 15 1. The Centrality of Jesus ...... 15 2. History and Theology ...... 18
PART I: THE ORIGINAL JESUS (or How the New Testament Witnesses to Him) THE FOUR GOSPELS ...... 23 1. The Gospel of Matthew: Christ the Fulfillment of Scripture ...... 23 2. The Gospel of Mark: Christ the Suffering Servant ...... 26 3. Luke’s Gospel and the Acts: Christ the Savior of the World ...... 31 4. The Gospel and Letters of John: Christ the Word Made Flesh...... 37 5. The Fourfold Gospel...... 41 6. Jesus and Paul ...... 43 THE THIRTEEN LETTERS OF PAUL ...... 46 7. A Polemical Letter (Galatians): Christ the Liberator ...... 46 8. The Early Letters (1–2 Thessalonians): Christ the Coming Judge ...... 49 9. The Major Letters (Romans, 1–2 Corinthians): Christ the Savior ...... 52 10. The Prison Letters (Colossians, Philemon, Ephesians and Philippians): Christ the Supreme Lord ...... 65 11. The Pastoral Letters (1 Timothy, Titus and 2 Timothy): Christ the Head of the Church...... 68 THREE MORE JEWISH AUTHORS...... 71 12. The Letter of James: Christ the Moral Teacher ...... 71 13. The Letter to the Hebrews: Christ Our Great High Priest ...... 73 14. The Letters of Peter: Christ the Exemplary Sufferer ...... 77 Conclusion: Diversity in Unity ...... 79
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PART II: THE ECCLESIASTICAL JESUS (or How the Church Has Presented Him) “ANOTHER JESUS” ...... 85 1. Christ the Complete Fulfillment: Justin Martyr The prophets and the philosophers ...... 86 2. Christ the Unique God-Man: The Early Councils The importance of Christology ...... 89 3. Christ the Perfect Monk: St. Benedict Two questions about monasticism ...... 92 4. Christ the Feudal Debtor: Anselm Medieval atonement theology ...... 95 5. Christ the Heavenly Bridegroom: Bernard of Clairvaux Christian mysticism...... 98 6. Christ the Ethical Exemplar: Thomas à Kempis An ascetic imitation of Christ...... 101 7. Christ the Gracious Savior: Martin Luther Justification by faith alone ...... 105 8. Christ the Human Teacher: Ernst Renan and Thomas Jefferson Enlightenment skepticism...... 107 9. Christ the Tragic Victim: John Mackay Good Friday without Easter ...... 110 10. Christ the Social Liberator: Gustavo Gutiérrez Good news for the poor ...... 114 11. Christ the Jewish Messiah: N. T. Wright Exile and exodus ...... 119 12. Christ the Global Lord: Mission in the Twentieth Century From Edinburgh (1910) to Lausanne (1974)...... 123 Conclusion: Authenticity Versus Accommodation ...... 128
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PART III: THE INFLUENTIAL JESUS (or How He Has Inspired People)
THE STORY OF JESUS ...... 133 1. The Bethlehem Stable: Francis of Assisi The nativity of the poor king ...... 134 2. The Carpenter’s Bench: George Lansbury The dignity of manual labor...... 136 3. The Ministry of Compassion: Father Damien and Wellesley Bailey Touching untouchables...... 142 4. The Sermon on the Mount: Leo Tolstoy, Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. The challenge of nonresistance ...... 145 5. The Love for Children: Thomas Barnardo “An ever-open door”...... 149 6. The Washing of Feet: Samuel Logan Brengle A necessary lesson in humility ...... 153 7. The Cross: Toyohiko Kagawa The revelation of the love of God ...... 156 8. The Resurrection: Joni Eareckson Tada “I’ll be on my feet dancing”...... 159 9. The Exaltation: Henry Martyn Zeal for the honor of Christ’s name ...... 162 10. The Gift of the Spirit: Roland Allen The Holy Spirit is a missionary Spirit ...... 165 11. The Second Coming: Anthony Ashley Cooper (Lord Shaftesbury) A program of social reform ...... 167 12. The Last Judgment: William Wilberforce The abolition of slavery and the slave trade ...... 170 Conclusion: The Radical Nature of Christ’s Influence ...... 173
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PART IV: THE ETERNAL JESUS (or How He Challenges Us Today) “THE REVELATION OF JESUS CHRIST” ...... 179 1. Christ Claiming to be the First and the Last and the Living One (Rev 1) A vision of the resurrected and eternal Christ...... 184 2. Christ Supervising His Churches on Earth (Rev 2—3) Seven marks of an ideal church...... 187 3. Christ Sharing God’s Throne in Heaven (Rev 4—5) The throne, the scroll and the Lamb ...... 193 4. Christ Controlling the Course of History (Rev 6—7) The seven seals and the two communities ...... 198 5. Christ Calling the World to Repentance (Rev 8—11) The seven trumpets, the little scroll and the two witnesses . . . . . 202 6. Christ Overcoming the Devil and His Allies (Rev 12—13) The woman, the dragon, the male child and the two beasts . . . . 210 7. Christ Standing on Mount Zion with His Redeemed People (Rev 14:1—15:4) The radical alternative: salvation and judgment ...... 217 8. Christ Coming Like a Thief in the Night (Rev 15:5—19:10) The call to be ready...... 221 9. Christ Riding in Triumph on a White Horse (Rev 19:11—20:15) The doom of the beast and of Satan ...... 231 10. Christ Coming as the Bridegroom to Claim His Bride (Rev 21—22) The new universe, the city and the garden ...... 238
Epilogue (Rev 22:6-21)...... 244
Conclusion: One Book in Four Parts ...... 250
Notes ...... 252
Scripture Index ...... 260 IncomChrist.book Page 9 Thursday, July 16, 2009 2:56 PM
FOREWORD
I have no doubt, as Archbishop of Canterbury, that the greatest and most important task we have as Christians today, whatever our de- nomination, is to name the Name, and to do so not only with the greatest of courtesy for the beliefs of others but also with a conviction that the person of Christ continues to meet the longings and hopes of every human heart. Dr. John Stott has made the subject of Jesus Christ the center of his life’s work and study. From his pen have flowed penetrating works that combine scholarship with years of passionate commitment to the pastoral and evangelistic work of the church. From his mouth have flowed powerful and convincing expositions of the relevance of Christ for today. But while John is a brilliant and well-read scholar, he has never been an ivory-tower theologian. He falls into the classic Anglican tra- dition of the “teaching pastor.” His classroom has been first the parish and second the world. He has not sought academic position or eccle- siastical preferment. And yet, according to no less an authority than David Edwards, “with the exception of William Temple, John Stott is the most influential clergyman in the Church of England of the twen- tieth century.” John, being the humble man of God he is, will shift uncomfortably at these words. But I too want to pay tribute to this remarkable min- istry in the contemporary church. The four main objectives of the London Lectures are “to expound some aspect of historic biblical Christianity; to relate it to a contem- porary issue in the church or the world; to be scholarly in content, yet popular enough in appeal and style to attract the educated public; and to present each topic in such a way as to be of interest to the sec- ular as well as the Christian public.” IncomChrist.book Page 10 Thursday, July 16, 2009 2:56 PM
10 THE INCOMPARABLE CHRIST
These four objectives are, in my opinion, an exact outline of John’s own ministry, from the earliest days when he was a curate at All Souls, Langham Place, to his current role as an international ambassador for Jesus Christ. His biographer, Bishop Timothy Dudley-Smith, sums up his ministry with these words: “No one can read John Stott’s writ- ings without being aware that his concern is to teach and expound a revealed faith, and to interpret the authoritative and timeless Scrip- tures for a contemporary world.” John, as pastor, preacher, scholar, writer, apologist, evangelist and brother Christian, we thank God for you, and your long and graced ministry. The London Lectures in Contemporary Christianity, which John himself founded in 1974, have apparently never had the founder as a lecturer until now. It is most fitting, therefore, that he should have been the one to deliver the series in the year of the millennium. It is also most fitting that his theme should be the one that has always been the center of John’s ministry: the incomparable Christ.
George Carey, Archbishop of Canterbury IncomChrist.book Page 11 Thursday, July 16, 2009 2:56 PM
CHAIRMAN’S PREFACE
It seemed fitting to the London Lectures Management Committee that in the millennial year we should focus our attention on Jesus, and especially fitting that John Stott, whose vision and energy had given rise to the lecture series, should be invited to lecture. Our hopes were not misplaced. A lively crowd attended the lec- tures, All Souls Church in London being nearly full on each of the four Thursdays. The last lecture was given in the presence of Her Royal Highness Princess Alexandra and was introduced by the Arch- bishop of Canterbury. The talks provided much to stimulate the mind and warm the heart. The scholarship and personal enthusiasm of the lecturer were clear, as he drew on a lifetime’s work and study of great breadth and depth, whose focus and center have always been Christ. I am delighted to commend this thought-provoking and inspiring study of Jesus on behalf of the London Lectures Committee.
John Grayston, Chairman, London Lectures Committee IncomChrist.book Page 12 Thursday, July 16, 2009 2:56 PM
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am deeply grateful to the London Lectures Committee both for in- viting me to deliver the A.D. 2000 lectures and for proposing that the only appropriate topic would be Jesus himself, whose millennial birth- day we were supposed to be celebrating. Having made those two de- cisions, the Committee left me free to develop the chosen theme at my discretion. But they offered me steady encouragement, with John Grayston an excellent chairman and Betty Baker a conscientious and efficient secretary. I am also grateful to several friends who lent me books, gave me advice and helped me compile a bibliography. I am thinking, in par- ticular, of Richard Bewes, Dick France, Timothy Dudley-Smith, Paul Barnett, Paul Blackham, John W. Yates III, René Padilla and Eunice Burton. In addition, I am thankful to my publisher, to my editor, Stephanie Heald, and to Steve Motyer and David Wright. They were appointed as official readers of the manuscript and made a number of perceptive comments. But my special thanks are due to Corey Widmer, my current study assistant, whose horizons were bounded by the lectures for about eighteen months. In a very personal way he has taken them to his heart. He has shown remarkable persistence in surfing the Net, in tracking down references I could not find, in discovering books I needed to consult or read, and in making full use of the facilities of the recently opened British Library. As for the text of the lectures, he must have read it at least ten times at different stages. His suggestions have always been positive and helpful, and he also wrote the study guides that accompany the set of four videotapes of the lectures. For all this I thank him very much indeed. Then both of us have relied much on Frances Whitehead: her IncomChrist.book Page 13 Thursday, July 16, 2009 2:56 PM
Acknowledgments 13
unique perseverance as my personal secretary for forty-five years, her considerable computer skills and her willingness to see the text through its three main stages—the original edition, its abbreviation for the spoken lectures and its conversion into this book. When in April 2001 it was announced in a public meeting that the Archbishop of Canterbury had decided to honor her with a Lambeth M.A. de- gree, those present gave her an immediate and spontaneous standing ovation. So I send the book on its way, with the hope and prayer that many readers will acknowledge Jesus Christ as the proper object of our worship, witness and hope, and as deserving the description incompa- rable. For he has neither rivals nor peers. IncomChrist.book Page 15 Thursday, July 16, 2009 2:56 PM
INTRODUCTION
1. The Centrality of Jesus “Regardless of what anyone may personally think or believe about him, Jesus of Nazareth has been the dominant figure in the history of western culture for almost twenty centuries.” So wrote Jaroslav Pelikan at the beginning of his wide-ranging book Jesus Through the Centuries.1 It seemed appropriate, therefore, that the millennial London Lec- tures in Contemporary Christianity should be concerned with Jesus Christ, since it is his birthday (whatever its precise date may have been) that we have been celebrating. Consider his dominance in three spheres. First, Jesus is the center of history. At least a large proportion of the human race continues to divide history into B.C. and A.D. by refer- ence to his birth. In the year 2000 the world population reached 6,000 million, while the estimated number of Christians was 1,700 million, or about 28 percent.2 So nearly one-third of the human race professes to follow him. Second, Jesus is the focus of Scripture. The Bible is not a random col- lection of religious documents. As Jesus himself said, “The Scriptures . . . bear witness to me” (Jn 5:39 RSV). And Christian scholars have always recognized this. For example Jerome, the great church father of the fourth and fifth centuries, wrote that “ignorance of the Scrip- tures is ignorance of Christ.”3 In the sixteenth century, it is noteworthy that both Erasmus of the Renaissance and Luther of the Reformation emphasized the same centrality of Christ. The Bible “will give Christ to you,” wrote Eras- mus, “in an intimacy so close that he would be less visible to you if he stood before your eyes.”4 Luther similarly, in his Lectures on Romans, was clear that Christ is the key to Scripture. In his gloss on Romans 1:5 he wrote: “Here the door is thrown open wide for the under- IncomChrist.book Page 16 Thursday, July 16, 2009 2:56 PM
16 THE INCOMPARABLE CHRIST
standing of Holy Scripture, that is, that everything must be under- stood in relation to Christ.” And later he wrote “that the entire Scripture deals only with Christ everywhere.”5 Third, Jesus is the heart of mission. Why is it that some Christians cross land and sea, continents and cultures, as missionaries? What on earth impels them? It is in order to commend not a civilization, an institution or an ideology, but rather a person, Jesus Christ, whom they believe to be unique. This is particularly clear in the Christian mission to the world of Islam. “Our task,” wrote scholarly missionary Bishop Stephen Neill, “is to go on saying to the Muslim with infinite patience, ‘Sir, consider Jesus.’ We have no other message. . . . It is not the case that the Muslim has seen Jesus of Nazareth and has rejected him; he has never seen him.”6 But those who do see Jesus and surrender to him acknowledge him to be at the center of their conversion experience. Take as an example Sadhu Sundar Singh. Born in 1889 into an affluent Sikh family in In- dia, he grew up to hate Christianity as (in his view) a foreign religion. He even expressed his hostility at the age of fifteen by publicly burn- ing a Gospel. But three days afterward he was converted through a vision of Christ, and later, though still in his teens, he determined to become a sadhu, a wandering holy man and preacher.7 On one occasion Sundar Singh visited a Hindu college and was ac- costed rather aggressively by a lecturer who asked him what he had found in Christianity that he did not have in his old religion. “I have Christ,” he replied. “Yes, I know,” continued the lecturer impatiently, “but what par- ticular principle or doctrine have you found that you did not have be- fore?” “The particular thing I have found,” replied Sundar Singh, “is Christ.”8 But which Jesus are we talking about? For the fact is that there are many Jesuses on the overcrowded shelves of the world’s religious mar- kets. Already before the end of the first Christian century the ten- IncomChrist.book Page 17 Thursday, July 16, 2009 2:56 PM
Introduction 17
dency had begun for teachers to create an image of Jesus according to their own whim and fancy. So Paul had to remind the Corinthian Christians that he had betrothed them “to one husband, to Christ,” in order that ultimately he might present them “as a pure virgin to him.” But he was afraid, he added, lest their minds should be led astray from their “sincere and pure devotion to Christ” (2 Cor 11:2). My plan, therefore, is to investigate (in parts one and four of this book) the Christ of the New Testament witness, and to consider in church history how some people have presented him (part two) and how others have been influenced by him (part three). To elaborate this, my concern is to ask and answer four basic ques- tions about Christ. First, how does the New Testament bear witness to him? I hope to show that its testimony to Jesus, although admittedly rich in its diversity, is at the same time recognizedly a united witness. I am calling part one “The Original Jesus.” Second, how has the church portrayed Jesus Christ down through the cen- turies? I am calling part two “The Ecclesiastical Jesus” because I want to consider how the church at different times, now faithfully, now unfaithfully, has presented Christ to the world. Third, what influence has Christ had in history? This third part is com- plementary to the second, as we move on from the church’s presen- tation of Christ to Christ’s challenge to the church. Our perspective now, however, will not be the successive stages of church history, but rather the successive stages of Christ’s career and how each stage (with its different emphasis) has inspired different people. I am calling this part “The Influential Jesus.” Fourth, what should Jesus Christ mean to us today? In part four we will remind ourselves that Jesus Christ is not only historical (indeed a figure of distant history) but eternal (in fact “the same yesterday, today and for ever”) and therefore also our contemporary. He confronts ev- ery new generation, century and millennium in his roles of Savior, Lord and Judge. The context for this fourth and final study will be the IncomChrist.book Page 18 Thursday, July 16, 2009 2:56 PM
18 THE INCOMPARABLE CHRIST
New Testament’s last book, the book of Revelation, the Christian apocalypse. For in its very first verse it claims to be not primarily a prophecy but “the revelation of Jesus Christ.” We will focus on the ten main visions of Christ in the book of Revelation. This book, therefore, will be a blend of Scripture and history. We will consider the church’s presentation of Christ and Christ’s influ- ence on the church, against the background of the New Testament in general and the book of Revelation in particular. In this way the bib- lical portrait of Christ is seen to be normative. He is the authentic Jesus by whom all the fallible human pictures of him must be judged. My hope is that these studies in the Bible and church history will be seen to justify my title, The Incomparable Christ. There is nobody like him; there never has been, and there never will be.
2. History and Theology Many would advise us to begin any New Testament survey with the letters, not the Gospels, since the letters came first. Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians was written from Corinth in or soon after A.D. 50, only twenty years after the death and resurrection of Jesus, whereas the Gospels were published at least a decade or two later. Bishop Paul Bar- nett has mounted a sustained critique of the tendency to begin with the Gospels. “The flood of literature attempting to recover the ‘histor- ical’ Jesus has limited its field of enquiry to the Jesus of the gospels; the letters and the early church have generally been ignored.”9 And yet in its wisdom the early church put the Gospels first be- cause, although published later, the events they record took place ear- lier. Moreover, if we read the Gospels first, we are immediately confronted by the historical figure of Jesus. But is his portrait in the Gospels authentically historical? The twentieth-century emphasis among theological scholars was on the quest of the historical Jesus. The so-called first or original quest is associated with Albert Schweitzer, whose book of this title was published in 1906.10 It is a monumental survey of all the romantic IncomChrist.book Page 19 Thursday, July 16, 2009 2:56 PM
Introduction 19
nineteenth-century “lives of Jesus.” Schweitzer himself portrayed Jesus as an eschatological prophet whose expectation of an imminent end was never fulfilled. This quest, initiated by Schweitzer, concluded with Rudolf Bultmann, who belongs to the twentieth century and who claimed that to demonstrate the historicity of Jesus was neither possible nor (if it were) necessary for faith. So after World War II, the new quest of the historical Jesus began. It is usually dated from an address given in 1953 by Ernst Käsemann, a former disciple of Bultmann, titled “The Problem of the Historical Jesus.” He expressed himself dissatisfied with Bultmann’s extreme skepticism. He and other “post-Bultmannians” urged a more positive view of history and tended to regard Jesus as a teaching sage, a reli- gious genius or a social revolutionary—constructions that present Jesus as too tame either to provoke his crucifixion or to launch the worldwide Christian movement. And now, since the 1980s, some scholars have been heralding the birth of the third quest of the historical Jesus.11 One of its most sig- nificant features is that the Christian and Jewish scholars involved in it are stressing both the Jewishness of Jesus and his mission to vindi- cate and restore Israel. This third quest expresses a greater confidence in the reliability of the Gospels’ portrait of Jesus. Such confidence is by no means universal, however, as is evident from the “Jesus Seminar” in the United States. Jointly founded in 1985 by Robert W. Funk and John Dominic Crossan, its seventy-five or so “fellows” have been meeting twice a year in order to assess the authenticity of all the sayings attributed to Jesus. They have used a color code: red for undoubtedly authentic sayings, pink for those that are probably so, gray for sayings that are not authentic but close, and black for those that are not authentic at all but a later tradition. Their book The Five Gospels: What Did Jesus Really Say? (the fifth being the apocryphal Gospel of Thomas) concluded that in their view “82% of the words ascribed to Jesus in the Gospels were not actually spoken by him.” Now they have turned from an examination of the words of IncomChrist.book Page 20 Thursday, July 16, 2009 2:56 PM
20 THE INCOMPARABLE CHRIST
Jesus to his works. Their study is not likely to be any more profitable, however, as their criteria are largely subjective.12 Before looking at the Gospels ourselves, we need to note a signifi- cant shift of emphasis among scholars from history to theology. Whereas “form criticism” was preoccupied with the concerns of the early church, “redaction criticism” is preoccupied rather with the con- cerns of the individual Gospel authors. However strong our convic- tion may be that they are conscientious historians (as Luke claims in 1:1-4), it is also important to hold that they are evangelists, consciously proclaiming the gospel, and theologians, developing their own dis- tinctive emphasis. This being so, it is clear that the process of divine inspiration did not smother the personality of the human authors. For this is the double authorship of Scripture, that God chose to speak his word through human words. The Holy Spirit selected, fashioned, pre- pared and equipped the human authors in order to communicate through each a message that is both appropriate and distinctive. IncomChrist.book Page 21 Thursday, July 16, 2009 2:56 PM
PART ONE
The Original JESUS
(or How the New Testament Witnesses to Him) IncomChrist.book Page 23 Thursday, July 16, 2009 2:56 PM
THE FOUR GOSPELS
1. The Gospel of Matthew: Christ the Fulfillment of Scripture How thankful we should be that in God’s providence we have four Gospels! For Jesus Christ is too great and glorious a person to be cap- tured by one author or depicted from one perspective. The Jesus of the Gospels is a portrait with four faces, a diamond with four facets. What then is the major feature of Jesus according to Matthew? It can be stated in one word: fulfillment. Strongly Jewish in his origin and culture, Matthew portrays Jesus as the fulfillment of the Old Testa- ment. For his Gospel serves as a bridge between the two Testaments, between preparation and fulfillment. Consider these words of Jesus recorded in Matthew 13:16-17: “Blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear. For I tell you the truth, many prophets and righteous men longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.” In other words, the Old Testament prophets lived in the period of anticipation; the apostles were living in the time of fulfillment. Their eyes were actually seeing, and their ears actually hearing, what their predecessors had longed to see and hear. So Mat- thew does not portray Jesus so much as another prophet, one more seer in the succession of the centuries, but rather as the fulfillment of all prophecy. It was in and with the ministry of Jesus that the long- awaited kingdom of God had come. First, then, Matthew’s Christ was the fulfillment of prophecy. This is forced on our attention by the genealogy with which the Gospel be- gins (Mt 1:1−17). For Matthew traces Jesus’ lineage back to Abraham, the father of the chosen people, through whom God promised to bless the world, and to David, the greatest of Israel’s kings, who was the exemplar of the great king to come. Thus Matthew gives the ge- IncomChrist.book Page 24 Thursday, July 16, 2009 2:56 PM
24 THE INCOMPARABLE CHRIST
nealogy of the royal line. His concern is to show that Jesus was “the son of David” (a title he uses more often than the three other Evan- gelists together), who had a right to David’s throne. Matthew’s favorite formula is “Now this took place that it might be fulfilled which was written.” It occurs eleven times. His anxiety is to demonstrate that everything that happened had been predicted and that everything predicted had been fulfilled. In addition, Matthew sees in the story of Jesus a recapitulation of the story of Israel. As Israel had been oppressed in Egypt under the despotic Pharaoh, so the baby Jesus became a refugee in Egypt under the despotic Herod. As Israel passed through the waters of the Red Sea in order to be tested in the wilderness for forty years, so Jesus passed through the waters of John’s baptism at the River Jordan in order to be tested in the wilderness of Judea for forty days. Again, as Moses from Mount Sinai gave Israel the law, so Jesus from the Mount of the Beatitudes gave his followers the true interpretation and amplification of the law. The theme of fulfillment is most clearly displayed in Jesus’ inaugu- ration of the kingdom of God. All four Evangelists write that he pro- claimed the kingdom, but Matthew has his special emphasis. In deference to Jewish reluctance to pronounce the sacred name of God, Matthew uses instead the expression “the kingdom of heaven” (about fifty times). He also grasps that the kingdom is both a present reality (for the kingdom had “come upon” them, Mt 12:28) and a future ex- pectation (for at the end of history the King will sit on his glorious throne and judge the nations, Mt 25:31-46). In all these ways—in the genealogy, in Matthew’s favorite formula, in the recapitulation of the story of Israel and in his teaching about the kingdom—Matthew’s Christ is the fulfillment of prophecy. Second, Matthew’s Christ is the fulfillment of the law. Jesus seemed to his contemporaries to be disrespectful of the law: for example, breaking the sabbath law, flouting the laws of ritual purification and neglecting the law of fasting. He seemed to be lax where they were strict. But Jesus insisted that he was loyal to the law. Some scholars IncomChrist.book Page 25 Thursday, July 16, 2009 2:56 PM
The Four Gospels 25
think that Matthew deliberately portrays Jesus as the new Moses. For just as there are five books of Moses in the Pentateuch, so there are five collections of Jesus’ teaching in Matthew’s Gospel, which is a kind of Christian Pentateuch. In any case, Matthew records these words of Jesus: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is ac- complished. . . . For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven” (Mt 5:17-18, 20). The disciples must have been dumbfounded by these words of Jesus, for the Pharisees were the most righteous people in the world. How could the followers of Jesus be more righteous than the most righteous people on earth? The Master must be joking! But Christian righteousness is greater than Pharisaic righteousness because it is deeper. It is a righteousness of the heart, a righteousness not of words and deeds only but especially of thoughts and motives (see Mt 5:21- 30). It is in this sense that Jesus was the fulfillment of the law. He took it to its logical conclusion. He looked beyond a superficial under- standing of it to its radical demand for heart righteousness. Third, Matthew’s Christ is the fulfillment of Israel. This is the most subtle of the three fulfillments. It is possible to read Matthew and miss it. Matthew sees Jesus confronting Israel with a final summons to re- pent. So Jesus told the apostles that he had been sent “only to the lost sheep of Israel” (Mt 15:24) and that they were to go only “to the lost sheep of Israel” (Mt 10:6). Later, of course, Jesus’ great commission would open the apostles’ horizons to the Gentile world; now, how- ever, during his earthly ministry, Israel was to be given one more chance. But they persisted in their rebellion. So Jesus wept over the city, expressed his longing to have gathered its citizens under the shel- ter of his wings, and warned it that his judgment would fall on that IncomChrist.book Page 26 Thursday, July 16, 2009 2:56 PM
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very generation, which happened of course in A.D. 70 (Mt 23:36-39). Thus Jesus saw himself as the sole surviving representative of au- thentic Israel. He alone remained faithful; otherwise the whole na- tion had become apostate. At the same time, he was the beginning of a new Israel. So he deliberately chose twelve apostles as equivalent to the twelve tribes and as the nucleus of the new Israel. To them the kingdom of God would be transferred (Mt 21:43). Moreover, he called this people his “church,” a countercultural community charac- terized by the values and standards of his kingdom, as described in the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus also made it clear that this new Israel would be interracial and international, and salt and light to the world. It is especially remark- able that Matthew, the most Jewish of the four Evangelists, neverthe- less portrays near the beginning of his Gospel the visit of those mysterious Magi, representatives of the Gentile nations, and at its end the commission of the risen Lord to go and disciple the nations. Thus his kingdom community would grow like a mustard seed from tiny, unpropitious beginnings until it filled the earth: “I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven” (Mt 8:11).
2. The Gospel of Mark: Christ the Suffering Servant If Matthew presents Jesus as the Christ of Scripture, Mark presents him as the Suffering Servant of the Lord, who dies for his people’s sins. The cross is at the center of Mark’s understanding of Jesus. Mark’s Gospel, like the other three, is strictly anonymous. Its author does not disclose his identity, but a very ancient tradition attributes the second Gospel to Mark. At the same time, there is known to have been a close association between Mark and the apostle Peter. Papias, bishop of Hierapolis at the beginning of the second century, called Mark Pe- ter’s “interpreter,” who recorded Peter’s memoirs and sermons. Cer- tainly there are more references to Peter in Mark’s Gospel than in the IncomChrist.book Page 27 Thursday, July 16, 2009 2:56 PM
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others, and Mark tells more fully and vividly than the other Evangelists the follies, foibles and denials of Peter. Some have suggested that this gave Mark a fellow feeling with Peter, because Mark too had been a failure. If the young man who fled naked in the Garden of Gethse- mane was Mark (Mk 14:51-52), then he also ran away. And during Paul’s first missionary journey he ran away a second time (Acts 13:13; 15:37-38). But if, like Peter, Mark had denied Jesus, like Peter he had also been restored. For in later New Testament letters we find Mark giving loyal service to both Peter and Paul. For example, “Mark . . . is helpful to me in my ministry,” wrote Paul (2 Tim 4:11). Consider now a crucial passage from Mark’s Gospel, which brings together three of his favorite themes: who Jesus was, what he had come to do and what he requires of his followers. This text is a turn- ing point in the Gospel because it was a turning point in the ministry of Jesus. Before this incident Jesus had been fêted as a popular teacher and healer; from now on he warned his disciples of the coming cross. Jesus and his disciples went on to the villages around Caesarea Phil- ippi. On the way he asked them, “Who do people say I am?” They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.” “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?” Peter answered, “You are the Christ.” Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about him. He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. “Out of my sight, Satan!” he said. “You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.” Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it. What IncomChrist.book Page 28 Thursday, July 16, 2009 2:56 PM
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good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.” (Mk 8:27-38) First, consider who Jesus was. He knew there was a difference be- tween the people’s public perceptions of his identity and the apostles’ private dawning conviction. According to public opinion he was John the Baptist, Elijah or another prophet; according to the Twelve he was not another prophet but “the Christ,” the fulfillment of all prophecy. Matthew adds “the Son of God,” probably meaning not that he was the eternal Son but (as in Psalm 2:7-8) the Messiah. Immediately after the disciples had made this confession of faith, “Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about him” (Mk 8:30) but to remain silent and keep his identity a secret. This command to silence and secrecy has puzzled many readers. But it is not hard to under- stand, for Mark has already given two examples of the command to silence. After curing a leprosy sufferer, Jesus said to him, “See that you don’t tell this to anyone” (Mk 1:44). And after a deaf-mute had been healed, Jesus “commanded them not to tell anyone” (Mk 7:36). But why were they to keep their mouths shut? The reason is that the pub- lic had false political notions of the Messiah. For more than seven hundred years Israel had been oppressed by a foreign yoke, except for a brief and intoxicating period of freedom under the Maccabees. But now the people were dreaming that Yahweh was going to intervene again, that his enemies would be destroyed, that his people would be liberated and that the messianic age would dawn. Galilee was a hot- bed of such nationalistic expectations. Jesus was evidently afraid that the people would cast him in this revolutionary role, and he had good reasons for this fear. After the feeding of the five thousand, according to John, the crowd “intended to come and make him king by force” (Jn 6:15). But he had not come to be a political messiah. He had come rather to die, and through IncomChrist.book Page 29 Thursday, July 16, 2009 2:56 PM
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death to secure a spiritual liberation for his people. So (Mk 8:31) once the disciples had recognized him as the Messiah, “he then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be re- jected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again.” Further, he spoke “plainly about this” (Mk 8:32), that is, openly and publicly; there was to be no secret about the kind of Messiah he had come to be. Second, consider what Jesus came to do. Mark explains that once the Twelve had grasped his identity, he laid all his emphasis on the cross. On three more separate occasions Jesus plainly predicted his sufferings and death (Mk 9:31; 10:33, 45). Indeed one-third of Mark’s whole Gospel is devoted to the story of the cross. Three phrases in Jesus’ predictions are worthy of special note. First, “the Son of man must suffer many things and . . . be killed” (Mk 8:31). This note of compulsion is introduced. Why must he suffer and die? Answer: because the Scriptures must be fulfilled. Hearing Jesus’ prediction of the cross, Peter was brash enough to rebuke him, so that Jesus turned and rebuked Peter (Mk 8:32-33). Nothing must be al- lowed to undermine the necessity of the cross. The second phrase of note is that it is “the Son of Man” who must suffer. Although “son of man” is the regular Hebrew expression for a human being and is often used thus in Scripture, it seems clear that Jesus adopted it as a self-designation in reference to the vision of Daniel 7. Here “one like a son of man” (that is, a human figure) came with the clouds of heaven, approached the Ancient of Days (Almighty God) on his throne, and was given authority, glory and sovereign power, so that in consequence all peoples, nations and men of every language worshiped him. His dominion, Daniel adds, is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed (Dan 7:13−14). But now Jesus makes the astonish- ing declaration that the Son of Man must suffer. It means that Jesus adopted the title but changed his role. According to Daniel, all nations will serve him. According to Jesus, he would not be served but would IncomChrist.book Page 30 Thursday, July 16, 2009 2:56 PM
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serve. Thus Jesus did what nobody else had ever done. He fused the two Old Testament images—the servant who would suffer (Is 53) and the son of man who would reign (Dan 7). Oscar Cullmann writes: “Son of man” represents the highest conceivable declaration of exal- tation in Judaism; ebed Yahweh (the servant of the Lord) is the expres- sion of deepest humiliation. . . . This is the unheard-of new act of Jesus, that he united these two apparently contradictory tasks in his self-consciousness, and that he expressed that union in his life and teaching.1 The third expression Jesus used in reference to his death is “Even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mk 10:45). A ransom is a price paid for the release of captives. So Jesus taught that human beings are in cap- tivity (especially to sin, guilt and judgment) and that we cannot save ourselves. So he would give himself as a ransom instead of the many. The cross would be the means of our liberation. Only because he died in our place can we be set free. All this is part of Jesus Christ’s understanding of the cross, according to Mark. Third, consider what Jesus asks of us. After speaking of his coming death, Jesus called the crowd to him and said: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and fol- low me” (Mk 8:34). That is, Jesus moved at once from his cross to ours and portrayed Christian discipleship in terms of self-denial and even death. We can understand the significance of cross bearing only against the cultural background of Roman-occupied Palestine. The Ro- mans reserved crucifixion for the worst criminals and compelled those condemned to death by crucifixion to carry their own cross to the place of execution. So if we are following Christ and bearing a cross, there is only one place to which we can be going, and that is the scaffold. Christian discipleship is much more radical than an amalgam of be- liefs, good works and religious practices. No imagery can do it justice IncomChrist.book Page 31 Thursday, July 16, 2009 2:56 PM
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but death and resurrection. For when we lose ourselves we find our- selves, and when we die we live (Mk 8:35). Here are three fundamental themes in Mark. Who is Jesus? The Christ. What did he come to do? To serve, to suffer and to die. What does he ask of his disciples? To take up our cross and follow him through the death of self-denial into the glory of resurrection. All down church history the crucial questions have been christo- logical. They concern the identity, the mission and the demands of Jesus. In seeking to discover these things, we should beware both of public opinion (“Who do people say I am?”) and of idiosyncratic church leaders (who like Peter are impertinent enough to contradict Jesus). Instead we should listen to him in his own self-testimony, es- pecially as Mark records his emphasis on the cross. There is no au- thentic Christian faith or life unless the cross is at the center.
3. Luke’s Gospel and the Acts: Christ the Savior of the World There is a fundamental correspondence between who the Evange- lists are and how they present Jesus Christ. For divine inspiration shaped but did not obliterate the human personality of the writers. The best New Testament example of this principle is Luke. He is the only Gentile contributor to the New Testament. So it is entirely ap- propriate that he should present Jesus neither as the Christ of Scrip- ture (as Matthew does) nor as the Suffering Servant (as Mark does), but as the Savior of the world, irrespective of race or nationality, rank, sex, need or age. First, Luke was a doctor (Col 4:14). Consequently he was well ed- ucated, a man of culture (writing polished Greek) and a compassion- ate human being (who presumably would have sworn the Hippocratic Oath). Second, Luke was a Gentile, for Paul distinguished him from “the only Jews among my fellow-workers” (Col 4:11). So he belonged to the extensive world of the Roman Empire. During at least three peri- ods (the “we” sections of the Acts) Luke accompanied Paul on his trav-